74. Things You Save in a Fire by Katherine Center

listened on Audible

2019
320 pgs.
Adult Chicklit
Finished 12/3/2022
Goodreads rating: 4.02
My rating: 4
Setting: Contemporary Rockport, MA

My comments: An almost too-good-to-be-true paramedic/firefighter moves to Rockport, Massachusetts to help her estranged terminally ill mother.  Too-good-to-be-true in that she is stronger, smarter, savvier than all the other (male) firefighters in her department.  At 26 years old she has sworn off love and has never even dated since two things happened on her 16th birthday - her mother abandoned her and she was raped.  But on her first day in her new job in Massachusetts she has partnered with a rookie firefighter who she instantly falls for.  Turned out to be a definite romance novel with a firefighting twist.

Goodreads synopsis:  Cassie Hanwell was born for emergencies. As one of the only female firefighters in her Texas firehouse, she's seen her fair share of them, and she's excellent at dealing with other people's tragedies. But when her estranged and ailing mother asks her to uproot her life and move to Boston, it's an emergency of a kind Cassie never anticipated.

The tough, old-school Boston firehouse is as different from Cassie's old job as it could possibly be. Hazing, a lack of funding, and poor facilities mean that the firemen aren't exactly thrilled to have a "lady" on the crew, even one as competent and smart as Cassie. Except for the handsome rookie, who doesn't seem to mind having Cassie around. But she can't think about that. Because she doesn't fall in love. And because of the advice her old captain gave her: don't date firefighters. Cassie can feel her resolve slipping...but will she jeopardize her place in a career where she's worked so hard to be taken seriously?

Katherine Center's Things You Save in a Fire is a heartfelt, affecting novel about life, love, and the true meaning of courage.